{"id":278380,"date":"2026-09-03T20:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278380\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T20:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:24:07","slug":"w-va-man-pleads-guilty-to-bringing-flash-bang-grenade-to-pittsburgh-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278380\/","title":{"rendered":"W.Va. man pleads guilty to bringing flash-bang grenade to Pittsburgh airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A West Virginia man who tried to carry a live flash-bang grenade onto a flight out of Pittsburgh International Airport pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court.<\/p>\n<p>Zachary Velling, 27, of Morgantown will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mark R. Hornak on Jan. 7 in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>Velling was charged with a single count of possessing an unregistered firearm stemming from the incident on Nov. 12, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>According to investigators, Transportation Security Administration officers saw a suspicious object in Velling\u2019s carry-on luggage around 9:35 a.m. when he placed it in an X-ray machine.<\/p>\n<p>Allegheny County Police determined Velling was carrying a flash-bang grenade.<\/p>\n<p>A flash-bang grenade is designed to produce a bright light and loud noise and is sometimes used by law enforcement agencies in raids.<\/p>\n<p>After the grenade was discovered, a bomb squad technician responded to the airport and confirmed the device was live. It was safely removed, and Velling was arrested.<\/p>\n<p>According to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, the grenade is classified as a firearm and destructive device under federal law and was not registered to Velling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A West Virginia man who tried to carry a live flash-bang grenade onto a flight out of Pittsburgh&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-278380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}